Family and Apple Music: How to sync songs that are not in Apple Music to iPhones of my family member

[msvadi]

Our iTunes library contains many albums that are not in Apple Music. However, with iCloud Music Library enabled, we can no longer sync music from our iTunes library to our iPhones. It's not a problem for me: our iTunes library is on my Mac, and I can access songs from the iCloud, since I signed in iTunes with my Apple ID. But how can my family members access those songs?

Are we supposed to create duplicate libraries for each family member? Or Apple expects us only to listen to music that's in its catalogue?

 

[gsmornot]

Our iTunes library contains many albums that are not in Apple Music. However, with iCloud Music Library enabled, we can no longer sync music from our iTunes library to our iPhones. It's not a problem for me: our iTunes library is on my Mac, and I can access songs from the iCloud, since I signed in iTunes with my Apple ID. But how can my family members access those songs?

Are we supposed to create duplicate libraries for each family member? Or Apple expects us only to listen to music that's in its catalogue?

If they are songs you bought you would go to the iTunes app on each of their devices and look in the purchased section under Music. You would then be able to download the songs to your device. If they are songs you gathered from other sources and added to your library you will not be able to use Family Sharing to share the songs. You would (I think) have to upload those songs to their libraries while logged in as them but this is a guess. I'm thinking they would have to get the songs to their collection in the same way you have. The restriction for anything Family Sharing is that it has to be bought through the store then shared to the family.

 

[malnar]

gsmornot is right. The family membership just gives them Apple Music. It doesn't give them access to YOUR Apple Music library. This is both good and bad - good that I don't have my wife's or my daughter's music mixed in with mine, but bad because now to get stuff that Apple Music is missing, I have to have separate iTunes accounts on the computer for each person's individual music. I don't know how they could work around this. As far as I know, Google Music's family plan will work the same way.

 

[msvadi]

I actually tried to login with my wife's Apple ID into iTunes on my Mac. iTunes tried to upload music to my wife's iCloud Library, but most of the albums showed up in the iCloud as greyed out and were not accessible. Only a small minority of songs uploaded that way could be accessed from iCloud. So that did not really work.

Quite a few of the albums in my iTunes library were purchased before Apple Music. My family members cannot access them despite the fact that we now have a family plan. So it looks like Family Sharing does not apply to music purchased before you setup Family Sharing.

It seems now that the only way to proceed is to create duplicate iTunes accounts and libraries with music that's not available through Apple Music catalogue. If you ask me, it's a total waste of resources, as I now have to duplicate gigabytes of music on my Mac.

I wish Apple would let us to use both iCloud and iTunes libraries.

If they are songs you bought you would go to the iTunes app on each of their devices and look in the purchased section under Music. You would then be able to download the songs to your device. If they are songs you gathered from other sources and added to your library you will not be able to use Family Sharing to share the songs. You would (I think) have to upload those songs to their libraries while logged in as them but this is a guess. I'm thinking they would have to get the songs to their collection in the same way you have. The restriction for anything Family Sharing is that it has to be bought through the store then shared to the family.

 

[gsmornot]

I actually tried to login with my wife's Apple ID into iTunes on my Mac. iTunes tried to upload music to my wife's iCloud Library, but most of the albums showed up in the iCloud as greyed out and were not accessible. Only a small minority of songs uploaded that way could be accessed from iCloud. So that did not really work.

Quite a few of the albums in my iTunes library were purchased before Apple Music. My family members cannot access them despite the fact that we now have a family plan. So it looks like Family Sharing does not apply to music purchased before you setup Family Sharing.

It seems now that the only way to proceed is to create duplicate iTunes accounts and libraries with music that's not available through Apple Music catalogue. If you ask me, it's a total waste of resources, as I now have to duplicate gigabytes of music on my Mac.

I wish Apple would let us to use both iCloud and iTunes libraries.

My family has access to all of my purchased music. I have not bought any since setting up family sharing and Apple Music. I did at the same time give everyone in my family their own iTunes account as well. Prior everyone shared my login.

 

[msvadi]

My family has access to all of my purchased music. I have not bought any since setting up family sharing and Apple Music. I did at the same time give everyone in my family their own iTunes account as well. Prior everyone shared my login.

Yes, you are right: music purchases can be shared even from before Apple Sharing was setup. I could not see before how to access that feature.